I've always been one of those people that loves houses. Fun fact: When I was little, I wanted to be an architect when I grew up. I would spend hours (literally) drawing up floor plans to my dream houses on paper from a yellow legal pad. I always used this small, clear plastic ruler and a mechanical pencil. They were so detailed and, to this day, I can remember what I imagined the interiors and exteriors of the houses looking like, if they ever came to life. I always loved John Hughes movies, because they had the best houses (Home Alone, Uncle Buck, Sixteen Candles). When we would go visit my grandparents in Texas, they would take us around to all these open houses for these huge mansions. I loved going through them and I still have a lot of the pictures and literature I got from those. So, needless to say, choosing a house was a huge deal to me. I'm also one of those people that wants to live in the woods one day, and on the water the next. However, I've also always imagined myself living in a nice neighborhood, like the one I grew up in, with friendly neighbors and safe streets for my kids to ride their bikes on. When we were searching, I'm pretty sure my "must have" list looked something like this:
- We had to be in the school district we're in (Aurora had already started kindergarten, so even though we knew we may have to switch her schools, we at least wanted to stay within the district.)
- Had to be in a neighborhood with sidewalks
- Had to have trees (Jose despises me for this every time he mows the lawn, I'm sure. Sorry! I like to get all four seasons!)
- Had to have 4 bedrooms
- Had to have a fireplace with a mantle
- Had to have white trim. (This is actually something I was pretty big on, which is funny because we're slowly replacing all the trim in our house anyway. I knew I wanted the trim white and, for some reason, I thought painting it or replacing it would be this huge, expensive, daunting task, but it really hasn't been. Well, according to Jose. ;) )
My poor realtor. Not sure how she put up with me, but I'm so glad she did. (PS, If you're local, Shelly Mobus is your girl. She is so incredibly amazing!) I'm also not sure how my husband put up with me during this process. I'm sure he thought we'd never find a house. Side note: This was very much an "us" process, but Jose would've been okay living anywhere. I was the hard-to-please one, so that's why I keep saying "I wanted this" and "I wanted that.")
Anyways, so the day came for us to look at our house. I was feeling pretty discouraged, as we'd already seen quite a few others. We'd actually only been looking for about a month, I think, but it seemed like forever. I remember looking back through the pictures of the house online, that I'd already looked through 500 times the night before, and I liked it but there was definitely a lot of updating we'd have to do. We had also heavily considered building (which I really wanted to do at first, because everything would've been how we wanted it to begin with), but there was no land available in the areas we liked and it definitely would've been way more expensive. We certainly wouldn't have had four bedrooms. So, naturally, my inability to make decisions got the better of me and I called Jose and told him I didn't want to see the house anymore, because I thought it would just be a waste of our time. I'm sure he was super annoyed with me, as he was basically just like, "Whatever." So I text Shelly and asked her to cancel our showing. Of course there were a few people in the office I was in at the time that I was constantly updating on this process because, well, I was obsessed with finding a house. I happened to update one of my friends on the latest and she was all, "You should still go see it. You might regret it if you don't." Again, Miss Unable To Make a Decision By Myself over here, I was all, "You're right." Called Jose. Called the realtor. Showing was back on. If I remember correctly, she had never actually cancelled our showing. Either not much time had passed before I'd changed my mind, or she knew I was bat-shit crazy and would be calling back.
I believe our showing was that same night. I remember pulling up just as another couple was leaving. The house was immaculate. Perfect lawn. Perfectly trimmed bushes. Sidewalks. Check. Perfect storybook suburban house. We walked in and were asked right away to either take off our shoes, or put shoe covers on. The inside of the house was immaculate as well. This house had definitely been loved. It had this super out-dated 90's white with red and green wallpaper in the foyer and hall. I loved and hated that wallpaper. I knew we'd have to take it down, like, right away. But, at the same time, it reminded me of the foyer in Home Alone. That may have tugged at my heart strings a bit. We walked through this perfectly kept house. Four bedrooms. Check. Fireplace with a mantle. Check. I remember loving it, but also being blinded by all that we would have to do to make it "ours". Then we went to the backyard. Again, the landscaping was perfect. Beautiful green trees. Check. I think Jose fell in love with this house when he saw the second garage. Total man cave. All I could see was the extra money we'd be paying for this extra garage we didn't need. I remember standing in the middle of the backyard, talking for about 20 minutes before we left. Jose could tell I was still not sold. There was one thing that I remember being in the back of my mind. A friend had told me that I would know when I walked in the door of the house if it was meant to be. "You'll walk in, and you'll just know." Well. That didn't happen for me. So I was pretty sure this wasn't the house. But I can also remember Jose reminding me that it had everything on my "list" and that we would be able to change anything else to make it ours. He was right. It did have everything I wanted. We left, telling our realtor we'd let her know.
The next morning we still hadn't made a final decision when I left for work. I remember talking to Jose from work and him reminding me that it had everything I wanted, and saying something like, "If you don't like it, I just don't get what you're looking for." He was right again. In fact, I didn't even know what I was looking for. I started to think about all the possibilities with the house. I knew there were several other showings scheduled and I remember taking a quick 30 seconds to say one more last-minute prayer that we were about to make the right decision and that, if it wasn't the right decision, God would somehow make things fall through. I called Jose and said, "Okay, let's do it. Let's put in an offer." I'm pretty sure I could feel his sense of relief through the phone.
The rest of the buying process was actually pretty smooth (Again, if you're local, call Shelly!), and on November 20th, 2015, we got the keys to our very first home! I have grown to love this house so much. I don't know how many times that first year Jose and I would say to each other, as we pulled in the driveway, "I can't believe this is our house." I know, to some people, a house is just a house. But I grew up living in the same house my entire life. And there is something about being in a place for that long that makes it almost a part of you. I knew I wanted that when we got a house and I'm sure that's what made the decision so hard. At this point, Jose and I plan to live here forever, and we are having so much fun making this place ours! Btw, that "stupid" extra garage has come in super handy for storing things, for a place for Jose to work on house projects and, most importantly, for hosting summer get-togethers!
Below is a look at a few of the changes we've made so far. Here's a picture of the exterior of the house from the listing. I will not be posting any afters for, probably, ten more years. We suck at keeping up on our lawn. Maybe once we get the inside complete (Will that ever really happen?), we can put more focus into the yard. I attempted the hanging ferns the first spring we lived here, but turns out you have to water them on a regular basis. :/
The first change we made was removing this shelf from above the front door. I know it might seem so minor, but I want to open up as much of the house as possible, and taking this shelf out helped to make this area so much brighter and bigger.
We also had the wallpaper removed and a majority of the house painted a really light gray, which made the house look so much bigger, as well.
Of course, there's Holden's room.
Jose added a little shiplap to the area above the mantle. There's so much more we want to do with this room (windows on both sides of the fireplace, different ceiling fan or recessed lighting, hardwoods) and even the mantle itself (painting the brick white and replacing the current mantle with a huge wood beam), but baby steps!
PS I took the after picture late last night, so please excuse the mess!
The dining room is still a work in progress, but we also started another project last night.We Jose tore down the built-ins, and we're having a doorway put in to, hopefully, bring some more light into the family room. We're also going to put barn doors in, so we still have the option of separating the rooms if we ever need to, and then we'll be adding hardwoods. Eventually, we'll put in two windows in the front room, too. The wall that you can't see in this picture was already painted light gray when we moved in, so we'll paint the other walls the same color, once the doorway is finished.
I realize this was an unnecessarily long post about buying a house, but it's because it was that important of decision to us (me?) us. I'll continue to post pictures of the progress and before and afters of future projects, but everything will be done in baby steps, until we win the lottery. :)
I believe our showing was that same night. I remember pulling up just as another couple was leaving. The house was immaculate. Perfect lawn. Perfectly trimmed bushes. Sidewalks. Check. Perfect storybook suburban house. We walked in and were asked right away to either take off our shoes, or put shoe covers on. The inside of the house was immaculate as well. This house had definitely been loved. It had this super out-dated 90's white with red and green wallpaper in the foyer and hall. I loved and hated that wallpaper. I knew we'd have to take it down, like, right away. But, at the same time, it reminded me of the foyer in Home Alone. That may have tugged at my heart strings a bit. We walked through this perfectly kept house. Four bedrooms. Check. Fireplace with a mantle. Check. I remember loving it, but also being blinded by all that we would have to do to make it "ours". Then we went to the backyard. Again, the landscaping was perfect. Beautiful green trees. Check. I think Jose fell in love with this house when he saw the second garage. Total man cave. All I could see was the extra money we'd be paying for this extra garage we didn't need. I remember standing in the middle of the backyard, talking for about 20 minutes before we left. Jose could tell I was still not sold. There was one thing that I remember being in the back of my mind. A friend had told me that I would know when I walked in the door of the house if it was meant to be. "You'll walk in, and you'll just know." Well. That didn't happen for me. So I was pretty sure this wasn't the house. But I can also remember Jose reminding me that it had everything on my "list" and that we would be able to change anything else to make it ours. He was right. It did have everything I wanted. We left, telling our realtor we'd let her know.
The next morning we still hadn't made a final decision when I left for work. I remember talking to Jose from work and him reminding me that it had everything I wanted, and saying something like, "If you don't like it, I just don't get what you're looking for." He was right again. In fact, I didn't even know what I was looking for. I started to think about all the possibilities with the house. I knew there were several other showings scheduled and I remember taking a quick 30 seconds to say one more last-minute prayer that we were about to make the right decision and that, if it wasn't the right decision, God would somehow make things fall through. I called Jose and said, "Okay, let's do it. Let's put in an offer." I'm pretty sure I could feel his sense of relief through the phone.
The rest of the buying process was actually pretty smooth (Again, if you're local, call Shelly!), and on November 20th, 2015, we got the keys to our very first home! I have grown to love this house so much. I don't know how many times that first year Jose and I would say to each other, as we pulled in the driveway, "I can't believe this is our house." I know, to some people, a house is just a house. But I grew up living in the same house my entire life. And there is something about being in a place for that long that makes it almost a part of you. I knew I wanted that when we got a house and I'm sure that's what made the decision so hard. At this point, Jose and I plan to live here forever, and we are having so much fun making this place ours! Btw, that "stupid" extra garage has come in super handy for storing things, for a place for Jose to work on house projects and, most importantly, for hosting summer get-togethers!
Below is a look at a few of the changes we've made so far. Here's a picture of the exterior of the house from the listing. I will not be posting any afters for, probably, ten more years. We suck at keeping up on our lawn. Maybe once we get the inside complete (Will that ever really happen?), we can put more focus into the yard. I attempted the hanging ferns the first spring we lived here, but turns out you have to water them on a regular basis. :/
Before
After
Of course, there's Holden's room.
Before
After
PS I took the after picture late last night, so please excuse the mess!
Before
After
The dining room is still a work in progress, but we also started another project last night.
Before
After
Again, please excuse the mess!
I realize this was an unnecessarily long post about buying a house, but it's because it was that important of decision to us (me?) us. I'll continue to post pictures of the progress and before and afters of future projects, but everything will be done in baby steps, until we win the lottery. :)
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